"Then I'll read it right through!" cried Roger with childish perversity. "That cannot be an ill deed, for my Lady my grandmother was set to have me do the same."
Lawrence made no reply.
Though nothing on earth would have drawn the confession from him, yet for all his expressed contempt for women, little Roger sorely missed Guenllian. She had been his virtual mother for so long that, suddenly deprived of her, he felt like a chicken roughly taken from under the brooding wings of the hen. He was far more inclined to respect her wishes than he would have been had she remained with him: and there was also a certain zest added by the instinctive knowledge that what was good in the eyes of Guenllian was not unlikely to be bad in those of my Lord Arundel. Little Roger felt as if he had the pleasure of doing wrong, without the conscientious reaction which usually followed.
The impulsive little mind was made up that he would read that French Bible. That it was locked up in a tall press, at least four feet above his reach, was rather an additional incentive than a hindrance. To be always on the watch for a possible leaving about of the keys formed an object in life; and the subsequent scaling of the shelves like a cat was decidedly a pleasure to be anticipated. The keys were in charge of Sir Gerard, who was the Earl's librarian; and he put them every night beneath his pillow. He need not have taken the precaution, so far as Roger was concerned; for to possess himself of the keys by theft would have been utterly dishonourable and unchivalrous in the eyes of the future knight. Yet with odd inconsistency—are we not all guilty of that at times?—he had no such scruple as to possessing himself of the Bible, if he could only find the keys. But weeks went on, and this hoped-for discovery had not been made.
It came suddenly at last, when one morning the Earl had occasion to send for Sir Gerard in haste, at a moment when that gentleman, having just finished his dressing, was about to put the usual contents into his pockets. He left the articles lying on the table, and hurriedly obeyed the summons: which he had no sooner done than the small Earl of March pounced upon the keys. He had been watching the process with considerable fluttering of his little heart; the next moment the key of the press was slipped off the ring, and was safe at the bottom of his pocket. Lawrence looked on with very doubtful eyes, the expression of which was easily read by Roger.
"Now, Loll, hold thy peace!" said he, though Lawrence had not uttered a word. "I must have it, and I will!"
It will easily be surmised that Roger's ambition involved no particular desire of learning, least of all the study of divinity. The delight of outwitting the Earl and Sir Gerard was great; and the pleasure of doing something that Guenllian and his grandmother had wished him to do, deprived the action of all wrong in his eyes, and added to it a sentimental zest. Had the two motives been weighed in a balance, the first would have proved the heavier.
The press containing the Bible stood in a large room which opened off the hall. The expedition to secure it must remain a future gratification for the present. If only Sir Gerard would not miss the key! Was it safe to carry it in Roger's pocket? Roger consulted Lawrence, who agreed with him that it was a serious risk to run. He advised its restoration, but to that hypothesis his young master would not listen for a moment.
The study of the garden wall now became sensationally interesting; likewise of sundry old trees within the enclosure. The alternatives seemed to have equal chances of adoption, when a little hole was discovered in the wall, at the further end of the garden, delightfully hidden by a small loose stone which just fitted nicely into the crevice. The key was safely concealed, and Roger, with the most angelic innocence of face, returned to the house to repeat his Latin lesson to Sir Gerard.
Roger had been taught that to hide any thing from his confessor was a sin of the most deadly type. Conveniently for him, his confessor was not his tutor Sir Gerard, but the Earl's family chaplain, Friar Thomas Ashbourne, a fat sleepy old priest, who never inflicted a penance that he could help, and was more frequently than not employed in mental wool-gathering during the process of confession, merely waking up to pronounce the absolution at the close. It was not at all difficult to get on the blind side of this comfortable official, especially if a morning could be selected when his thoughts were likely to be preoccupied with some subject interesting to himself.